Over the years, I've had the pleasure of dealing with many large coroporations via email, and I have noticed some important trends regarding the right way to answer customer queries when they come across the internet. I've compiled a few important points that anyone starting a new business should pay close attention to, so that they don't get left behind in this fast-paced world based on idiotry, humorlessness, and disinformation.

ApoxyButt's Guide to Corporate Email Answering

  1. Never, NEVER respond to an email your corporation receives on the day of its arrival.

    This lets your customers know that your company is big and powerful and much, much too busy doing important corporate things like browsing for porn, taking long lunch breaks, and masturbating in the bathroom to deal with insignificant customers on a timely basis.

  2. Never address all of the customer's concerns at once.

    This again indicates to the customer that your company is big, powerful, and too busy ejaculating onto the toilet seat to actually pay attention to the customer's entire email. A good method to use is to open the email in a very small viewing window and scroll to a random point in the text. Then read what's in the window and respond to only that, whatever it may be. If that portion of the email does not pertain to your company, make a random decision about who it DOES pertain to and simply tell the customer that they should contact that party instead. Customers love to be endlessly referred to other sources of information, and this passes the buck so that you don't have to do any more work.

  3. Everything is a possible lawsuit!

    Customer complaints are a different matter. If anything in the email looks like a complaint about possible bodily harm or something equally serious, you must respond in such a way as to relieve the customer's worries. If the customer claims that your small piece of computer hardware is capable of emitting poison gas, instigating alien invasion, ruining foreign relations with Kazhakistan, or causing all of the nation's pork products to suddenly turn into soy meat substitute, you must calmly and rationally explain why these things cannot, in fact, happen. Remember, nobody wants to get sued for alien invasion, so take no chances!

  4. Humor = Fewer Sales

    Customers like the corporate representatives they correspond with to be humorless, vegetable-like drones. Try to mimic an auto-respond program as best as possible, while still addressing the one point that you've picked from the little window (as mentioned in point #2.) If you make any attempt at wit, humor, or creativity, the customer will think that you are insane, untrustworthy, and/or homosexual and never buy your company's products again. If people wanted to be entertained, they wouldn't be worrying about fixing their hardware. They would be out playing solitaire or picking their toenails.

  5. Strive to cause the customers to kill themselves.

    A well-written corporate email can cause even the heartiest of customers to jam a red-hot icepick into their skulls. If you can get the concerned customer to do this, then you will never have to correspond with them again, and you will be free to get back to your corporate things which you had to cut short because somebody came in to use the stall next to you. The best way to cause customer suicide is to follow closely the rules above while speaking in inane, incomprehensible doubletalk. All this is sure to keep your day running smoothly and your company successful.

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